Ok…here is the other story I have on a totally worthless but meaningful card that I have displayed in my office.
It is a 1957 Topps Sal Maglie and it looks like it was run over by a truck…several times. I am sure it is the worst condition card that I own. But I will never get rid of it.
As a 16 year old In 1976 activities like playing high school sports, flipping burgers to save for a car and girls took all my collecting time and money…but before that I was a card collecting fiend from 5th grade thru 9th grade getting all the current Topps cards I could from the years 1970-1975 and trading for cards from prior years concentrating on Orioles.
I had 2 class mates during those years that were also avid card collectors. Mickey was a Yankee fan and rode my bus so we could even trade on the way to and from school. Bruce was a Mets fan who sat in the desk in front of me and liked to rub the 1969 World Series in my face every now and then. I count both of them among my best friends of the last 50 years and still see them several times a year.
The 3 of us would wheel and deal cards as often as possible during school and I don't ever remember us fighting or squabbling about our deals…and that is where the 1957 Topps Sal Maglie comes in. He was the equalizer in many deals. Let's say I was making a deal with Mickey but he was unsure about the trade…if I had the Sal Maglie card…even in that condition…I would say “Mick, how about I throw in Maglie” and it would cinch the deal for many reasons. For us a 1957 card was a really old card…it was issued 3 years before we were born. And Maglie was a pretty good pitcher with a cool nickname, The Barber, and pitched for all the New York teams…Giants, Dodgers and Yankees as well as the Indians and Cardinals. Having played for all those teams is why somebody erased the team name on the front…I don't recall who did that. All 3 of us owned the card multiple times and somehow I ended up with it. I have it on display in my office to remind me of my youthful card collecting days with childhood friends that became lifelong friends.
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02-16-2019, 06:14 AM
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